Student Council has allocated about a quarter of its available University Unity Project grant money, $2,700, to student groups working within the Charlottesville community.
With the help of a $10,000 donation from the University Bookstore, Student Council developed the initiative with the hope of creating a stronger connection between the student community and the Charlottesville community, University Unity Project Chair Rob Atkinson said. The goal of the project, he noted, is to emphasize all that these two communities have to offer one another.
The source of the funding
The University Bookstore tries to donate money annually — typically between $10,000 and $30,000 — to Student Council, University Bookstore Executive Director Jon Kates said. Although the money comes with “no strings attached,” Kates said the bookstore encourages Council to use the money to help as many University community members as possible or to help those most in need.
“We don’t dictate how they use the money,” Kates said, though Council informs the bookstore administration of its plans in advance and regularly gives reports on how the money is spent. Council leaders meet with bookstore representatives in the summer to give “their vision” for how the money will be used, Kates said. When Student Council President Matt Schrimper came to him with the idea for the University Unity Project, Kates said, “it seemed like an extraordinary idea.”
Kates said the size of the gift depends on the bookstore’s financial situation.
“If your business is down, your ability to be philanthropic diminishes,” Kates said.
This type of initiative would be impossible without the financial support from the bookstore, Atkinson said, noting that because the money for the University Unity Project does not come from student activity fees, there are fewer restrictions on how it is used.
Who gets what
With flexibility in how it can use the grant money, Council has been overseeing a grant-awarding process throughout the fall.
“I think that we’re all pretty happy with where we are so far, chronologically relative to how many applications we have received,” Atkinson said.
Michelle Henry, a University Unity Project committee member, said the project will continue throughout the academic year.
“It’s a rolling application process, and we’ve been delegated $10,000 for the year, so we are managing that to last until the end of the spring [semester],” she said.
Council has been receiving more applications lately, Atkinson said, a phenomenon he attributes to publicity efforts that included sending e-mails to “a pretty broad swath of groups.”
So far Council has evaluated 22 applications for grants, 11 of which have been approved and four of which did not need funding and received only publicity or other support. Seven were rejected, but “some might be back,” Atkinson noted. An additional four proposals are still under consideration, Atkinson said.
The committee in charge of awarding grants, Atkinson noted, has sought to distribute funding in an ethical manner. For example, Atkinson said, “the Environmental Sustainability Committee of Student Council sent us an application, but one of the concerns we had was that it’s not best for the Unity Project to be funding other areas of Student Council.”
Similarly, when Third-Year Council applied for a grant, its members who have been involved in the grant approval process did not participate when their own application was evaluated.
Groups that have received grants either heard about the Unity Project and then decided to do a project as a result or already had projects that qualified for Unity Project funding, Atkinson said. Although most projects are service-oriented, often helping disadvantaged members of the Charlottesville community, Atkinson said Council is also receiving proposals for relationship-based projects such as mentoring programs.
Specific projects
Several groups have seized the opportunity to reach out to the Charlottesville community with the support of grant money from the Unity Project.
Iberedem Ekure, president of the Organization of African Students, said his group mentors African refugees within the Charlottesville community.
“Charlottesville is one of the resettlement cities [where] the International Rescue [Committee] resettles refugees,” Ekure said. “There are a lot of refugees from war-torn countries.”
The group’s Unity Project grant money goes toward a training-day event for the 51 mentors as well as toward books and various activities that the mentors do with the refugees, OAS Community Service Chair Selam Asihel said.
Ekure said the University Unity Project’s theme of “Beyond our Grounds, Within our Community” is “perfectly aligned with what we’re doing this year,” adding that the project provided OAS with a great opportunity to work with Student Council.
The Latino Student Union also has received a Unity Project grant, which Latino Student Union President Chris Blank said has been used for the Latino Health Promoter Program. This program involves a series of dinners focusing on health and wellness issues for 20 to 30 members of the Latino community.
Blank said he was initially skeptical about working with Student Council, noting that many minority groups do not feel Student Council has reached out to them. Blanks said, however, that he was “pleasantly surprised with the outcome.” He said Student Council did a good job publicizing and getting participation from groups that are not usually involved.
“We asked for money for the cost of the dinner and we got the exact amount for which we asked,” Blank said.
Another group, the Virginia Alpine Ski and Snowboard Team, sought to bring together skiers and snowboarders in the Charlottesville area, VASST Vice President Meggie McArthur said.
After a company from Wyoming approached VASST to screen its film as a fundraiser, she said, VASST decided to open the event to the community as well as to its own members.
“We wanted to get a venue that did justice to the film ... an actual theater setting,” she said. The group eventually chose Live Arts, which cost $500 for the night, McArthur said. VASST applied for, and subsequently received, a Unity Project grant to cover the theater expense. McArthur said the event was a success — the group sold tickets for 199 of the 200 seats.
In terms of monitoring how the money was used, Council met with VASST after the group received the grant but did not pursue any formal accountability measures, McArthur said.
“They didn’t say anything about auditing us or anything like that,” McArthur said.
Atkinson said the committee checks up with groups following their events.
“As far as oversight, depending on when the event [or] project is scheduled, we schedule a follow-up meeting to get feedback on the event and on how the money was used,” he stated in an e-mail. “This is also partly to help us evaluate ways to help groups execute their events or projects more effectively in the future.”
Henry said the process for reviewing money granted by Student Council remains consistent.
“With any [Student Council] grant at the University, there is not exactly a per-line check on budget spending,” she said.
In the future
With the University Unity Project well underway, Atkinson said Council now is looking to the future.
“We’ve gotten a lot of good feedback from [contracted independent organizations],” he said. “We want to make the general student body more aware of what’s going on — the ideas behind this, how they can participate.” Atkinson said this will be accomplished through publicity efforts, both for the University Unity Project as a whole and associated events.
Some current projects are intended to extend beyond the term of the sitting Student Council. The “Don’t Sign It” campaign — which seeks to eliminate pressure to sign leases for the next academic year as early as October — is one such long-term initiative.
“It has to do with the interaction between the University and the Charlottesville community,” Atkinson said. “It’s one of those things that’s going to be a year-over-year thing, and it’s not necessarily going to achieve everything that we want it to achieve this year.”
Ultimately, Council wants to “create valuable relationships that go beyond service,” Atkinson said. “We’re really looking for a much more relationship-based and long-term connection.”
Henry noted that the idea behind the University Unity Project has staying power.
“The Unity Project in general is a growing structure,” she said. “I don’t think that mission will necessarily die in any form. The goal is to bring the University community together.”
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